


the stars that brought us together

by hoegeta



Series: moments [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Romance, how do i tag dis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoegeta/pseuds/hoegeta
Summary: Theirs is a love that’s written in between the stars: forever, and nothing less.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: moments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892851
Comments: 5
Kudos: 92





	the stars that brought us together

**Author's Note:**

> cloud and tifas backstory literally kills me how can u not think they’re meant for each other
> 
> i wrote this in like 30 minutes

_the boy next door—_

A head of blond hair peaks around the corner.

It’s spiky, sticking up at odd angles, reminds her of a chocobo. She’d like to pet it, to smooth down the stubborn spikes, but he wouldn’t really like that. Cloud doesn’t really like anything. He never smiles. She’s never seen him smile. Even now, there’s a deep frown marred into his face, creases between his brow, and he stays hidden behind the building, doesn’t come out, stays bathed in the shadows.

Tifa’s attention swims within him and him only, and she kind of isn’t listening to what her friends are saying anymore. Cloud never talks to them. He’s always in the shadows, far and just barely out of her reach. Barely, because he’s still _there_. He lingers. He watches.

With his same frown. With his same spiky, chocobo hair. He’s there.

Tifa gives him a smile. His frown falls, melding into widened eyes and parted lips. And then, he flees, and she can’t see him anymore.

She wishes she could reach him.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the girl next door—_

Her friends left her behind. He’d been jealous of them before. But now, he isn’t, because why should he be? He’s better than them in every way. They’re stupid, stupid—

But Tifa isn’t. He watches her hair sway like a raven curtain of silk behind her back, her limbs wobbly and lanky as she climbs up Mount Nibel. For her mama, she had said. She wants to see her mama. She’d been crying in her room all day, and Cloud lingered outside her window, watching, waiting, but for what? He didn’t know.

Her stupid friends were with her.

But now, they aren’t. And he follows her, stays closely behind. Tifa’s palms are cut up and scraped, and she hasn’t stopped crying. The sounds of it, her sobs, echo through the cave of his chest. He listens, and he listens, and she doesn’t stop crying, doesn’t stop whimpering for her mama.

She misses her step. And she goes down, down, down—

And he can’t do anything. Can’t grab her. Can’t pull her up. Useless, stupid, useless—

It happens in a flash. There was tumbling. There were sharp edges. There was wind singing through his ears. And then, nothing. Silence. Pain caresses all of his senses, shakes him awake. His knees are split open, blood spewing out. But other than that, he’s fine. He’s okay.

No more sobbing. Cloud looks around, and Tifa is unconscious. As if asleep. As if dead, maybe.

And it’s all his fault.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the stars we loved—_

She didn’t expect it.

Cloud doesn’t really talk to her. Not to her or any of the other kids their age in the village. She’d been surprised when he’d called her up to the water tower at night. He sits, swinging his legs, the stars hanging over him, painting him on a canvas of washed-out blues and grays. Under her, Nibelheim is quiet. But it’s always like that. Quiet and bled dry of its life. Weeds and sand and dust and nothing more.

He tells her that he’s going to become a Soldier. He wants to be a strong hero like Sephiroth. It’s going to be difficult, and they both know that.

“I won’t be back for a long time.”

She almost tells him to stay. Almost.

She looks at him, but he turns his head away. And Tifa can’t break her gaze from him, can’t understand what this feeling is, flooding her chest as if a tsunami has crashed all over her heart. She’s thirteen, and Cloud’s fourteen, and he’s going away for a long, long time.

She makes him promise to be her hero, and she looks up at the stars, hoping they’ll, one day, bring him back to her.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the shinra grunt—_

He failed again.

He’d failed to save her back when she fell on the mountain. And then, he’d decided that he was weak. That he was useless. That he needed to get strong for her. Only for her. Always for her.

Tifa was like a sun. Lit up his world, flooded him in warmth and safety, but he couldn’t go near her, couldn’t get too close.

He’d told her he’d get into Soldier. He wanted to be a Soldier, only for her.

And Nibelheim looks the same. Smells the same, reeks of mako and dead plants. The trashed car still rests near the entrance, the only car that’d ever been in the town. People walking about aimlessly, shopping or enjoying the summer afternoon. Zack and Sephiroth are in front of him.

He stays hidden behind his helmet. Because Tifa can never know. She can never know.

She can never know that he failed again. Again.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the blond soldier—_

She’d ran when the heard the news.

There’s a man with long, flowing hair, as silver as the moon at night. There’s a man with slicked-back, black hair, his sword as wide as Tifa’s torso. And there are guards in blue, their guns strapped to their backs. And there’s no one else. No First Class Soldier with blond hair. She’d checked the newspapers every day. She’d waited for him every day.

“They only sent two?”

The man with the black hair nods, looking back at his silver-haired companion.

“Yeah, me and Sephiroth.”

And Tifa runs off, that familiar wave crashing over her chest, flooding her soul. She’d gotten so excited, Soldiers coming to Nibelheim to investigate the reactor. She thought it would be him. He should have become a First Class by now, right?

But he’s not here. She waited, but Cloud never came back.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the world on fire—_

His world is on fire.

He chokes on the ashes, blinks away the smog that stings at his eyes. His world is in flames. His mom. His hometown. His everything, all gone, wisped away by the wind as if they’d never been.

Sephiroth stands in front of Jenova, his arms stretched out, as if he’s a God. And Cloud sinks the Buster Sword into him, shears him in half, all blood and viscera spilling out, staining the glass tube. The rage bubbles within him, licks at his veins, gnaws at his soul. His mom. His hometown. His everything.

His Tifa, collapsed on the floor, a gash carved into her torso, framed by torn, bloodied clothes.

Her skin is warm, touched by fire. He holds her against him, cups her cheek, feels relieved when the puff of her breath fans over his face. Her eyes are closed, so she can’t see him without his helmet. She doesn’t know that he failed her, that he could never become a First Class.

But he’ll become her hero, even if it’s the last fucking thing he’ll ever do.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the one who came back to me—_

It’d rained the night she found him.

Crumbled against the train tracks, haggard, dirty, reeking of mako. Barely conscious, his head lolling about his shoulders as if it was empty. She almost didn’t believe it, not at first.

But she saw the chocobo hair. The eyes as they opened, blinding blue, brilliant blue, mako blue, cold but capturing her soul, rendering her speechless. He’s taller, much taller. Broader. Stronger, muscles sewn into the sinew of his arms. They aren’t kids anymore.

She brought him back to Seventh Heaven, welcomed him into her life. Here, in the Sector Seven slums, building something beautiful out of the ashes of their hometown, of their childhood, of everything that was stolen from them. He’s just as quiet as he’d always been. Aloof. Waiting, watching.

But this time, it’s different, because when she reaches out, he’s there. Right there, and she can touch him. Knows that he won’t leave, not this time.

The stars brought him back to her. And maybe it’s all she’s ever really wanted.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the one I left behind—_

He doesn’t know where five years of his life went. Maybe he was asleep, and when he’d woken up, he’d been in Sector Seven, Tifa’s eyes glimmering in front of him, like the stars escaped the sky and found her irises as their new home.

Tifa’s like the sun. The stars. Everything warm, everything beautiful. Like home. And when everything is blurry, his life flashing before him in misplaced remnants of memories that don’t quite make sense, Tifa is his clarity. Because if he’s sure of anything, it’s how he feels about her.

Love, maybe. He isn’t sure. That odd flower peddler on the street had told him that lovers give each other yellow lilies when they’re reunited.

He gives the lily to Tifa, loses his breath when she gives a shy giggle. His chest blooms, something fluttering, melting in the ice cave of his chest.

He’s home again, back to her.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the boy I love—_

They’re clumsy. They’ve never done this before. Their last night before the end, and he’d told everyone to run off, to find something worth fighting for. And for Tifa, her reason was right there: the spiky, chocobo hair. The blindingly blue eyes. The boy from her childhood, from her most precious of memories, from the deepest recesses of her heart. Her hero. It’s him. It’s always been him.

He’s what she holds dear. And they’re clumsy. Inexperienced. Fumbling, nervous. Wandering, grabby hands; he nearly rips her shirt by accident. Without his gloves, his touch feels nice. Soft. Gentle, as if she’s a glass doll he’s afraid to break. The grass is bumpy under her back. The world is still around her, quiet, the stars their only witness, whispering into her ears.

“Tifa,” he says, his voice fragmented, staggering out of his throat. Tifa’s fingertips drift over his cheek, his silhouette drenched in the coming sun.

She smiles at him, drowns in his kisses, in the messy stroke of him inside her.

If the end is tomorrow, so be it. She’ll be all right. As long as he’s by her side.

**.**

**.**

**.**

_the girl I love—_

He’s bloodied. Beaten. Broken. But he won. He won this time.

And as the world crumbles beneath him, steals the ground from his feet, a hand reaches out to him. The dear friend they lost, who went back to the Lifestream.

And then, it’s Tifa, her eyes wide, her lips moving, but he can’t hear her. She comes barreling downwards, and he goes after her, holds her tight against him as they teeter on the precipice of life and death, everything falling apart around them.

And he’d failed all those times. Failed to save Tifa on the mountain. Failed to get into Soldier. Failed to stop Sephiroth from ruining Nibelheim. Cloud’s always been a failure. Useless. Stupid. A loser.

But it’s different now. It’s different. He won. And he’ll start again. Create a new life from the rubble. With her. With Tifa by his side, because he knows that she’ll always, always be with him. The girl he’s always loved. The girl who began everything, his sun, his light, his home.

His forever. The stars led him back to her, and he knows it was always meant to be this way.

“Let’s go meet her.”

Together. Together, always, until the end of time.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3


End file.
